Sleep Deprivation

Well I wrote a paper for English and I found it very interesting and an eye opener and since I did not post a blog last Thursday(I'm sure you were all upset) I decided to post my english paper. I apologize for this.

On November 4th we will cast our vote for the next President and when we cast our vote we will vote on the candidate that we believe will improve our country the most. These past few weeks we have heard each candidate's argument about how they will improve this nation. During the Presidential debates they have addressed our nation's biggest problems from a failing economy to expensive healthcare, increased taxes, and a poor education system but have failed to address one of the nation's biggest problem; sleep deprivation. Millions of Americans suffer from not getting the required amount of sleep and our nation is paying for it. Instead of billion dollar tax bailouts and complex and confusing health care plans, Americans really need to have a couple of extra hours with their heads on their pillows. If Americans were getting the recommended hours of sleep each night we would save American lives, boost our economy, make healthcare affordable, improve our education system and improve the overall quality of life for every single American.
The American people are simply not getting enough sleep. There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. The average American sleeps 6.9 hours during the week and 7.5 hours on weekends ("National Sleep Foundation"). Despite the recommended amount of sleep for adults being eight hours a night and for adolescents and college students its nine hours each night (Behrens and Rose 502).
William Dement, a researcher at Stanford University, who has written several books on sleep deprivation, including The Promise of Sleep, co written with Christoper Vaughan, talks specifically about sleep "debt" and how the brain reacts when it is not getting the required amount of sleep. The brain keeps a tally of how much of you have slept and knows exactly how much sleep you need to get every single night. For instance if a person sleeps only six hours every night of the week that person has fallen short of the recommended amount of sleep by a whole ten hours. A person between the ages of 11-17 have missed out on approximately 15 hours of recommended sleep and will not be fully refreshed until those 15 hours of missed sleep are made up. Every week Americans are accumulating an average of 6.5 hours of sleep debt and in a year that adds up to 13 and a half days worth of sleep that they missed out on (Dement and Vaughan 537-544). Too many Americans do not fully understand the effect that sleep deprivation has on them because if they did getting a full nights sleep would be one of their top priorities.
One of the biggest topics that have been discussed in these Presidential debates is the 781 American soldiers that are being brought home in body bags every full calendar year that we are over in Iraq (icasualties.org). Even though the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration estimates that 1,500 people die every year on our nation's roads due to sleep deprivation (Behrens and Rose 502). That's nearly twice as many people dying on our roads on their way to work or to see their family or friends then defending our nation. A mother who loses her husband in the war can have some comfort in the fact that their fallen loved one sacrificed his life for the betterment of our country but when they hear that their husband is not coming home because he didn't lay in bed an extra hour it makes the devastating news unbearable. If Americans were getting enough sleep, it would drastically reduce the number of accidents and deaths that happen on a daily basis.
Another topic that is being discussed in the Presidential debates is our nation's economic crises and both candidates have offered their reasons why the economy is failing but neither candidate has talked about how sleep deprivation is costing us billions of dollars every year.
The Economic Policy Institute shows that since 1969 Americans have increased the amount of time they spend commuting and working by approxiametly 158 hours a year which is causing people to become sleep deprived while at work and the effects of their sleep deprivation is hurting the economy ("Sleep America"). The National Transportation Board concluded that sleep deprivation was the cause of the Exxon Valdez a massive oil tanker crashing and spilling tons of oil which ended up costing more than two billion dollars to clean up. In addition to the environmental damage the Exxon Corporation was charged an additional five billion dollars in punitive charges (Dement and Vaughan 537-544). The effect of an employee who was suffering from sleep deprivation cost our economy billions of dollars and gives a perfect example of just how much sleep deprivation in the workplace can cost. The U.S. economy loses 54.6 billion dollars every year due to decreased productivity, sick leave among employees and property and environmental damages ("National Sleep Foundation").
Each candidate has talked about making healthcare cheaper and more available to everybody. They want to implement new and complicated healthcare plans when all they really need to do is encourage people to get the recommended amount of sleep. The National Institute of Health spends $200 million a year trying to solve the ongoing problem of sleep deprivation and spends 15 billion dollars to help the 40 million people in the United States who are diagnosed with chronic sleep disorders. According to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration sleep deprived drivers cause 100,000 accidents every year resulting in 71,000 injuries (Behrens and Rose 502-503). Every year 30.4 billion dollars are spent by Americans on health care due to sleep deprivation ("National Sleep Foundation"). We are wasting billions of dollars that could be used to lower healthcare costs because people don't fully understand the importance of a good night's rest.
Highschool and college students are the most sleep deprived people in our nation. The National Sleep Foundation has reported that 80 percent of adolescents do not get the recommended nine hours of sleep each night(National Sleep Foundation 521-526). Highschool students' lack of sleep is putting our nation's future at risk. If we do not take the necessary steps of educating our youth then the future of this country looks very poor. The value of an education is irreplaceable and providing the best possible education program for them, so that further on in their lives they can contribute to society, is one of our nation's top priority. Making sure that highschool and college students are getting the recommended amount of sleep needs to be the first step taken to improve education program.
The lack of sleep among highschool students is showing; more than a quarter of highschool students are falling asleep in school and just a little under a quarter of students falls asleep while doing their homework and 14 percent of students don't even show up to school because of sleep deprivation (521). Two-hundred and eighty students were surveyed at Harrington High School and 90% of the students said that the reason they were getting bad grades was due to lack of sleep ("Science of Sleep"). According to the National Sleep Foundation's 2006 Sleep in America poll showed that 80% of the students who are getting nine hours of sleep say they are getting A's and B's in school(National Sleep Foundation 521-526).
Dr. Mindell, director of the Graduate Program in Pschology at Saint Joseph's University, emphasizes the importance of highschool students getting enough sleep when he said "Sending students to school without enough sleep is like sending them to school without breakfast. Sleep serves not only a restorative function for adolescents' bodies and brains, but it is also a key time when they process what they've learned during the day"(522).
More than half of our nation's highschool students go to bed at 11:00 p.m. or later and are getting up 6:30 a.m. regardless of when they go to sleep that night. Jodi A Mindell, co-chairman of the National Sleep Foundation poll task force, explains why highschool students are not getting enough sleep, "In the competition between the natural tendency to stay up late and early school start times, a teen's sleep is what loses out"(522). If there were no early school times and if highschool students weren't forced to leave at 6:00 in the morning to get to school at 8:00 a.m. then they could afford to sleep in and get the required amount of sleep.
Richard Schwab, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania performed a study on his high school daughter and concluded that "school systems should be thinking about changing their start times. It would not be easy--they would have to change the busing system--but it would increase their student's sleep time and likely improve their school performance." In 2007 Science Daily surveyed 280 students at a highschool in Philadelphia and the students they are not as alert in the morning and do not test as well in the morning and the best time to take a test would be from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.("Science Daily"). As a result the students would perform better academically and that their grades would improve if they could sleep in longer. Students would not only test better but they would learn and would in result would prepare them for college.
Colleges are just as guilty of early start times and by not having any classes that before 10:00 a.m. If colleges had later start times and lengthen the school year we could spread out the homework we could get rid of all-nighters or late night cram sessions. College students biggest challenge isn't the early start times; it is when they have to work a full-time job to support themselves and still maintain good grades and still get the recommended nine hours of sleep. If we were able to take some of the 100 billion dollars we are wasting a year due to sleep deprivation then we could offer more scholarships and financial aid then college students could focus purely on getting a better education and it would have a trickle down effect on our entire nation and would result in a better America.
Business hours are as much to blame for the sleep deprivation as any thing else in America. If we are forcing our schools to start later it would only make sense for businesses to have to follow the same schedule. Business should not be able to open their doors until at least 11:00 and must be closed at 8:00 p.m. There are approximately 22 million American workers that are expected to work shifts that are extremely unhealthy and cause severe sleep deprivation and we need to limit the number as much as possible("Sleep America"). Obviously we cannot close hospitals, police stations and fire stations and other facilities that are mandatory but twenty-four hour grocery stores, fast-food restaurants, phone centers and other unnecessary jobs need to let their employees go home and sleep.
Overall the quality of Americans' live would improve. People would no longer be grumpy in the morning and cranky all day because they didn't get enough sleep. We would be more alert and prepared for the demands of our daily lives and could handle problems with greater ease. We would be a happier and more productive nation if we were getting our recommended eight hours of sleep.
I love Presidential candidate Barack Obama's simple solution to saving oil and the increasing gas prices instead of drilling for more oil or developing an alternative to oil he simply encouraged people to inflate their tires. If inflating our tires is the solution to the oil crises in America then simply getting more sleep is the solution for our struggling economy, expensive healthcare, improving the educational system throughout the nation and improve the quality of life in America. Each candidate and their respective advisors have stayed up many nights thinking about what new programs they will implement once in office to improve our nation and in actuality the best way for them to improve a struggling nation would be to set the example and get a good's night rest.